While forgoing a tax increase for the seventh consecutive year, Harrisburg’s mayor presented a proposed 2020 budget that aims to increase salaries, pay down debt and cover the costs of infrastructure improvements.

That was the message Mayor Eric Papenfuse delivered to city council members Tuesday night when he announced the details of the budget, which he said he was pleased to present.

The budget, which does not include a tax increase, is balanced, predicting general fund revenue and spending at $74.3 million

And those projections came with news about the 2019 budget, too — specifically that revenue has exceeded what had been projected.

That’s been true due to levies, including the city’s earned income tax, local service tax and business privilege tax, the mayor said.

"We are up significantly by several million dollars,” he said. “Basically, it’s all indicative of business growth and activity and earnings growth in terms of people who are working in the city.”

That type of revenue growth is important as Harrisburg officials plans to soon move out of Pennsylvania’s Act 47 status, which classifies it as a “financially distressed" city and gives it some additional taxing authority.

“We are trying to become less reliant on the extraordinary taxing authority, and over time, that may be the case if we can continue to increase revenues at a rate above projections,” Papenfuse said.

Adding to that influx of revenue is a new agreement with UPMC Pinnacle Hospital, the city’s largest non-government employer, which has agreed to pay an additional $150,000 through its payment-in-lieu-of-tax agreement. The hospital, considered a nonprofit, does not have to pay taxes, but agrees to make the payment instead, Papenfuse explained.

The agreed-upon increase likely shows that the hospital also is seeing growing financial success, he said.

Additional revenue led to a proposal by Papenfuse to increase the 2020 police budget by about $1 million, which will allow for a new pay scale that includes higher salaries in an effort to increase police recruitment and retention, he said.

And that’s in addition to a plan to pay $5 million toward debt they city owes to Ambac Assurance Corp., despite the fact that the money isn’t due for another few years, the mayor said.

Officials at Ambac — which insured the city, providing needed dollars during its financial crisis — have agreed to reward the city if the $5 million is paid early, Papenfuse said.

Ambac officials will provide a multiplier of 1.38 to the $5 million, which means each dollar spent toward the debt would count as $1.38 dollars. That means the $5 million would transform into $6.9 million, Papenfuse said.

Along with that multiplier, Ambac has agreed to decrease the city’s interest rate on the debt from 6.75 to 5 percent for the next three years, according to the mayor, who pointed out that all of that will help to more quickly pay the debt off.

Papenfuse said he’d also like to explore the possibility of hiring an underwriter, who could help take a look at whether debt could be refinanced, further lowering interest rates.

All of that discussion was in addition to an overview of upcoming large-scale capital projects, which included improvements to North Seventh Street, MulDer Square, State Street and North Second Street, among others.